This is a short interview with one of the remote-exploit.org members who helped bring you BackTrack.
Shortly after the release of BackTrack Beta I was able to ask William Hidalgo of few questions about the project. He is a member of the new remote-exploit.org team comprised of two groups. The first being the writers of WHAX and the second being the writers of Auditor. Hopefully these question will give you some insight into the writers and what to expect in the future.
Who should use your distribution?
Security professionals, enthusiasts, and anybody else already in interested learning about security.
It's all about learning and becoming more knowledgeable in what we do.
What is one thing you would like your distribution to have or do that
no other distribution does?
We based our latest distribution on Slax for its modularity so users can make additions to the distribution as he or she wishes while keeping the LiveCD aspect of the distribution. I'm hoping we can expand on this to the point where a user can download only the packages he needs, such as forensics tools, and create his/her own custom ISO for his/her specific needs.
Why did you decide to make your own live security distribution?
It is more of a decision of the entire team to work together and use or individual talents to create something better and more useful. It starts with "Hey your good with forensics." or "I'm into routers and switches." and those specific things we know are bundled together into a finished product that everybody can use.
How many man hours go into each release?
I have no idea. I completely lose track of time when I work on something. I do remember that I did spend almost an entire month working on Backtrack and that's just me. The other teams members work just as hard or maybe even more.
What is your favorite *nix distribution and why?
Slackware is my overall favorite distribution. Stable, secure, and fast is what Slackware is to me. It is one of the oldest distributions and has a long history of development. The experience I obtained while using Slackware has been invaluable and a huge help when working on Backtrack. If you want to learn Linux then install Slackware. It is a great way to learn how everything runs and interacts together. It's not the only way of course but it sure is the most fun.
How do you see live security distributions evolving over the next few years?
I would really like to see a shift to more modular security distributions where you can build your own
ISO by downloading a forensics pack, a wireless pack, etc. I can't really guess on what will happen I will wait and see what new things emerge. It wouldn't be interesting at all if I knew what will happen over the next few years.
What is the biggest upgrade/addition that is planned for your distribution?
We've already had a big upgrade with the merger of Whax and Auditor into one distribution. As of now we are cleaning up any loose ends as we go through the beta phase of the Backtrack release. More modularity and simplicity is what I would like add onto the distribution as Backtrack matures.